Falling Well

Hope fell off a horse yesterday.

She isn't hurt. Not really.

Yesterday afternoon, however, her wails echoed clearly across the canyon.

She was wearing her helmet and was jogging Blondie in the arena. A neighbor on horseback passed on the trail adjacent to the arena at the exact moment Hope exhibited her refined skills of inattention. The other horse must have startled Blondie and because Hope wasn't paying attention, she simply toppled over on to the dirt.

She rode on a bareback pad which has no stirrups and no saddle horn. Aside from a short strap where the horn should be, there really isn't anything to grab onto. She has only been riding for 2 years and she hasn't really learned to fall well yet. As soon as Hope felt unstable she should have grabbed the strap on the pad. She might have regained enough balance to fall on her feet rather than her hip and back.

She screamed and began to cry as her instructor calmly walked over to where she had landed. She spoke to her quietly and after making sure she wasn't more than just a little bruised and scared, asked her to find the reins. Hope continued to yell as she stood up awkwardly and walked around Blondie to find the reins she had dropped in her distress.

She hopped back up on the horse with a groan and her teacher's help. Still crying softly, she walked her horse around the arena, slow and quietly. After a few minutes, her instructor explained to her why she fell and how she could have grabbed the strap to help. She probably still would have slid off the bareback pad, but she might not have landed as hard on her rear end.

Hope nodded with a few leftover tears on her cheeks. I think she learned and hopefully next time she falls (because she will fall again), she'll think quickly and try to land upright.

It isn't if we will fall, but merely when. Anything that requires skill and discipline carries both reward and risk and a certain amount of failure is inevitable. But, failure makes us learn.

Part of it is learning how to fall well, to regain our balance and land on our feet.

Old Friend

My husband and I have lived 4 places in our almost 12 years of marriage:

Apartment 1: One bedroom. Two cars stolen from the parking lot. We could walk to the mall. We spent our first two years of marriage here. This equalled slammed doors, raised voices and many midnight tears.
Apartment 2: Two bedrooms. Near the beach. Lots of cockroaches. We moved to get away from the roaches, but we will ALWAYS miss the coast.
House 1: 1928 bungalow in a historic part of town. Cute. Quaint. 1050 tiny square feet and a guest bedroom that slightly sloped toward the street. Had a baby. She learned to walk here.
House 2: More than doubled our square footage. Had another baby. Gained a view, a proximity to coyotes and wildfires and a microscopic yard. Let's just say that we will be here for pretty much ever.

Even though we needed to, leaving our first house was bittersweet.

The kitchen was small and the cupboard space was deplorable. The breakfast nook was fit, for perhaps mice, but certainly not a family who might eat their first meal of the day. The "dining room" spilled into the living room, which itself was only large enough for a television, and two small sofas. There were three bedrooms, but the "master" bedroom which was next door to the only bathroom was only large enough for a queen bed, two nightstands and a small path around. The closets were strange, tiny and dark. The raised hardwood floor was in moderate condition, but echoed when any person walked more than two steps in any direction.

But the walls were green. A perfect green, with just the right amount of brown throughout that it wasn't olive but it also wasn't mint. It was calm and it soothed.

The yard was wide and had fruit trees. I made lemonade each summer.

My baby had her own perfect baby room with hardwood floors and two small closets. It was next to ours and I could reach her crib using about four steps. This came in handy during sleepless nights and in the one earthquake that shook when we lived there.

My husband and I always felt at home there. We always felt like we belonged and that this home fit around us like a tailored coat.

We could have raised our girls there. But they wouldn't have been able to ride their bikes in the street because it was so busy. We couldn't have let them play in the front because there was always pedestrian traffic going to and from the university we lived 3 doors down from. With only one little girl running through the rooms, we were already starting to outgrow the thousand square feet of living space. Our best-friend neighbors moved away too, so the house felt empty even as we were beginning to leave.

This morning when I woke up in the bed that inhabits House 2, I was grateful that I could see the sunrise on the hills, hazy and warm. I could hear only one car as it passed on its way to work or school (rather than many). My girls were each still tucked in their own beds and the cat roamed the hallway. We are meant to be here, to bring up our family.

But our first house is still like an old friend to me. One who I will never speak to again, not because we fought or exchanged harsh words, but because she is simply unreachable. My old house, with its coved ceilings, vintage fixtures and tiny bedrooms, will never be mine again. It was sold, and since then, sold again, and someone else lives there now. Someone who I don't know and has put two strange gold lions on the front porch.

Parade Watching

I don't do parades.

I mean I do the Independence Day parade on July 4th every year in our community. This parade comes complete with horses, mom-and-pop floats, candy-throwing, water-gun spraying, folding chairs, ice chest refreshments, classic cars and golf carts. A real hometown parade in the middle of Orange County.

But I usually don't do Disney parades. There are no candy handouts or beach chairs; no golf carts and certainly no coolers allowed inside the park.

For me, Disney parades are something you watch over the tops of people's heads as you walk behind the crowds trying to pick your way down Main Street. Disney parades are busy, sweaty, popcorn-smelly, gutter-sitting, and I haven't waited to watch one since I was thirteen.

On Friday night, even though we had just arrived, we had already waited in four lines:

Parking Structure: 18 minutes (there was a staffing issue at the gates)

Tram: 15 minutes (just Friday night busy)

Bag Check: 6 minutes (because our family of four would be smuggling something illegal into the Park)

Park Entrance: 3 minutes (ironically, the shortest line yet).

I think Heathrow Airport is easier.

Already spent, we sat down at outside an ice cream shop to wait for some friends. 3 melting strawberry cones later, a loudspeaker announced that a PARADE WAS ABOUT TO BEGIN...in just 15 minutes, some Disney magic or something would descend upon us and we would be swept up in the glitter and fairy dust...in just 15 minutes.

Okay, so I don't do the steamy, sit-in-the-smelly-street kind of parade. But here we were, in the late afternoon shade, sitting at a table, tummies full in perfect view of the newest Disney sensation. My girls wanted to be swept up in the fairy dust --- who was I to stop them?

Our friends arrived with their two girls. The four little girls climbed up on chairs to see better. They giggled, danced, snapped pictures and strained to gather it all in.

I stood next to Naomi. She was in awe and yelled at each new character she saw,

Mr. Incredible (garbled but understood - "incredible" is hard to pronounce if you are two), Buzz!, Green Army Guys! (okay, she really didn't say "green army guys" - it was more like "guuuuyyysss!").

She had been swept up in some sort of Disney dust and was mesmerized.

I'm not really sure what else happened. I didn't watch. I really didn't care. Remember, I don't do parades.

Instead I watched her.

Cliche

When I was a little girl, the way my mother would wake me up in the morning was by finding my hand beneath the quilts and rubbing my palm and my fingers, so that I would wake up slowly.

Now, when my husband leaves some days in the early morning, he wakes me gently by kissing my cheek, whispering something I never remember and pulling up the blankets to cover me. Sometimes he opens our window so that by the time I do wake up, the cool new air is coming in.

But by far my favorite way to be woken up these days is an old cliche.

It is by the pitter and patter of little feet.

On this spring Sunday morning, I woke up at 6:34 and the sun was aleady high. It wasn't the light in our room that got me up, but my daughter's soft stepping down the hall, past the top of the stairs, around the corner and into my room. Her bare feet made little "pat-pats" on the carpet. She crawled into bed, up and over me from my side, her young foot lodging itself in my thigh and she nestled in beside me.

Softly, "Wake up, Mama."

No need, because I was already awake, her quiet footsteps waking me as gently as my own mother rubbing my hand.

Little Mamas

I am a girl-mother.

I don't mean I pull their hair back tightly in buns and make them stand in First Position while wearing ballet-pink from head to itty-bitty toe (although my stairs are at times peppered with dance bags and tap shoes).

I don't make them wear dresses, or matching bows in their hair at all times. If the barrette falls out in the middle of a park outing, their hair will blow wild with sand and sunscreen rubbed throughout.

I am a girl-mama but I don't force "girlness" on them.

But they do pick flowers for their braids and ask for nail polish. They twirl around in ruffles in the living room with fairy wands and plastic crowns. They ask to take dance classes and request dolls for birthday gifts. I don't hop over toy cars on the carpet, but over miniature horses and lavender-sparkle legos.

My girls choose these things on their own. They like to walk in the woods and pick up bugs like any regular boy, but they also love all things princess-infused like pink beach towels and dressing their stuffed dogs in tutus.

And also, without my intentional direction, they are beginning to nurture each other like little mamas. My older daughter runs to her sister if she's fallen down. She'll pick her up, set her right, and then coo and hold her.

The little one watches her big sister for every emotional cue. If the older one is sad, Naomi will ask her what is wrong with a concerned look on her two-year-old face. She'll express her "empathy" with some iteration of "Its okay, Hopey" and then try to make her giggle with a pretend-hiccup. She is learning to nurture in her own way.

And then, like surprise gift, unexpected and perfect, once in awhile, they will nurture me. Hope might let me put my head on her legs and she'll smooth my hair. This afternoon, Naomi sat in my lap and instead of me rubbing her little toddler back, she ran her hand up and down my own. It was as if she did the only thing she knew how to do to "mother"me.

This "girlness", a dim reflection of future-mothering, is innate to them. I haven't had to teach them to watch out for each other, or even to transfer their need to mother something to their dolls or to me.

I like being this girl-mama. I like having dance bags and ballet-pink tights litter my hallway; I enjoy the trips to the horse stables for lessons and the purple princess dresses that fill their closets. I love these girls and I like having little-mamas in my home.

Whining

"I can't understand you when you're whining."

She says with tears and emotion and purpose, "But I want a granola bar!"

"I gave your sister the last one. You are just fine. You just finished lunch. Please stop whining."

Sob, sob, sob....for about 12 seconds. I walk out of the room.

The granola bar is forgotten in favor of Super Why.


She wasn't hungry. She wasn't hurt. She just wanted what her sister had. And I have to partially lie when I tell her that I can't understand her through her whines.

I do understand. I do understand her outrageous demands through blubbers and snot and sniffs and wails. I understand her in the midst of her whines.

What I am trying to explain to her is that when she whines it makes it nearly impossible to separate her request from her overly emotional burst. Her whining is selfish and is directs all eyes to her and her usually irrational desire. Whines come in the form of

I don't want to go!

But I had it first!

You're hurting my hair!

But she...but she....

It makes me wonder, this afternoon, as I am trying to see straight after waking up from a nap that I couldn't help, that I expect the same from God when I whine. He does understand me through my whines, and He doesn't claim to be ignorant of my requests, however they are delivered.

I whine...What about my extra five pounds, my tantruming toddler, the messy toy room, my out-of-style clothes, the money I don't have and the bills I owe....what about...?

I sure do whine. And I whine loudly, but my whines come out in the forms of irritation at my husband or my kids, and frustration with my closet or my inability to keep things organized for more than a week. My whines are intended to direct eyes on myself, on my selfishness.

I guess, at these times I should take my eyes off myself and try to relinquish my selfishness. And like any good Parent, God just might remain silent until I am done. He waits for me to stop whining until I am ready to rest quietly and begin to listen to Him.

True Life Symphony

My days are so normal, sometimes they aren't even worth blogging about.

Elevator music.

I live this true, gritty, who's-going-to-take-out-the-trash life, in which my bedroom is a constant repository for clean piles of laundry and kids' dvds. It is where I have a giant basket full of unmatched socks and a weight bench that is rarely used. My life is so true and regular that it is either charged with stress and adrenaline or so tedious I fall asleep at 2:15 in the afternoon.

My weekday mornings run together in an endless stream of market trips, gym workouts, snack-picnics at the park and toddler play classes. My afternoons are filled with the school pickup line, power naps on the living room sofa, loading the dishwasher from breakfast, refereeing Kindergarten yells and toddler shrieks in the backyard and usually a mad rush to begin dinner sometime around 4:47. Only the weekend brings a reprieve.

Its like the CD I have in my car that I haven't changed since Christmas. When I get in, it plays. When I get out, it stops. And when I get in again, it picks up where it left off. It is a never ending circle of normal music that my kids know and I sing in my head when I am in line at Target.

I am far from perfect. I throw down hairbrushes because I can't take another, YOU'RE HURTING MY HAIR!!! I pile papers on my table and shove things under my bed I can't stand looking at any longer, and I am putting off potty-training because I am lazy. I raise my voice too much, I snap at my husband and I watch "Hell's Kitchen." This is me. This is the symphony I am writing.

It is normal, and real and sometimes it looks tedious.

But then, once in awhile, the regular notes of the day come together to make something sweet and perfect. There is a swell.

The light and air are just right in my bedroom in the evening before bed. The day has faded and I can't read the recipe in my magazine any longer. The cool air is coming in the open window and it is beginning to smell sweet like the sage outside. Hope is nestled in her sea of books and horses on her bed and she is reading. She is quiet on the inside and outside. Chad has begun to play something on his guitar for Naomi. He is letting her strum while he holds the chords.

My life is still gritty, grimy and in need of a bath. And the downstairs trash still needs taken out. And I know that the same CD will be in my car tomorrow when I drive to school.

We are here together, and somehow the adrenaline and stress and elevator music of the day has been forgotten for a few minutes. And I feel quiet on the inside too. There is a swell in the life-symphony and it is beautiful.

Pink Plaid Shoes

Only a two-year-old can get away with wearing pink plaid shoes proudly.

Only she can sit right down in the middle of the gravel to look closely at a rock she's discovered.

Only a toddler can pull off those pink shoes in the car and try to put her feet out of the rolled-down window to let cool air between her toes.

And its only this little girl that can steal my breath each afternoon so that the only thing I can do is smooch her smudged cheek.

Frustration

When my six-year-old becomes frustrated with a task, she growls or screams or pounds the floor. The first time she did this I was flabbergasted, wondering at what gene of my husband's produced this reaction in her.

We are trying to teach her to control her frustration, quietly asking an adult for help, using words and not grunts, and attempting the task again with calm concentration rather than the fire in her eyes minutes before.

It doesn't always work.

In fact, it usually doesn't. Sometimes, instead of growls, her frustrated cries turn into small whimpers. I still often look in amazement at her exaggerated emotional outbursts and shrieks at not being able to succeed at something.

Last night, as I was working on an article that I thought I might submit, attempting to rework the structure, inserting the right descriptions and removing the unnecessary ones, I became frustrated.

I told my husband that it wasn't even a good idea. The whole basis of the article wasn't worth going forward with it. I shut my laptop and laid my head on the table. I was done.

I didn't shriek or pound the floor, and I didn't growl at anyone. But I stopped and I didn't press through. In essence, I committed the same crime as my daughter. I gave up.

So tonight, when the house is quiet after the girls have fallen asleep, I am going to attempt it again, this time with calm concentration and hopefully renewed strength. I will have a new eye that hasn't looked at it for 24 hours and I might have a new idea throughout the day. Hopefully, tonight, I won't give up.

Taking Today

People were designed to live in the present.

The past and the future make little sense because we aren’t meant to live in either one.

We view the past through lenses of bitterness or nostalgia, watching for someone we used to know or waiting for something to jog our memory and remind us of a better day.

We experience the future through sieves of hope or dread. I look forward to things that may or may not exist, to “futures” that I envision so often that they become goals to reach. Goals that aren’t real.

People were designed to live within the present.

Of course I learn from my past. All of the journeys I’ve already walked become part of my journey now. And I plan for the future.

But I am beginning to believe that the only way I can take the most out of life is to live now.

So I want to take back today. I don't want to live regretting the laundry I didn't fold yesterday or dreading the pile I have tomorrow. I want to fix the battery-powered horse of this afternoon and watch it walk across the kitchen floor not concerning myself that it might not work tomorrow. I want to talk to my husband today and laugh with him, forgetting about the words we exchanged yesterday morning.

I don't want to live in tomorrow or last night. I want to take my today back.

Kindergarten Beauty

Her legs stretch longer, it seems, with each month that passes. Soon, she'll stand taller than me, I think, and her arms will hug my neck from my own height. I will be able to put my own mother-arms around her and hold her body as a woman, not a child.

I took her to tea yesterday with her aunt, her grandmother, her great-grandmother and me. Four generations of women from six years old to ninety, we sat around a table and shared cups of different teas (juice for my daughter) and tiny sandwiches (peanut butter and jam for her; egg salad for the adults).

She laughed or whined as she danced between the desire to be woman-like and the needs of a child. Hunger and impatience took over as we had to wait for a table or quietly converse before our food arrived.

My daughter got up from her chair often, partly to combat six-year-old restlessness and partly to try on hats from the tall rack in the corner of the room. She returned with a hat for each of us - an old fashioned black felt hat with flowers for my elderly grandmother and a maroon velvet one with netting for me. Hers was a giant silver hat with a wide brim fit only to be worn to the Kentucky Derby or a southern wedding.

I sat next to her and watched her as she ate, looking up with young feminine eyes from under her hat. She sat, legs underneath her, and reached for the sugar bowl to add to her "tea", making the juice even sweeter. She ate a currant scone with precision, but grinned up at me with raspberry jam at the corner of her mouth. She felt grown up.

And she felt her beauty. Before we left she wanted me to comb her hair and wanted me to dust a light layer of rose-colored blush on her cheeks. She wanted a little pink lip gloss that would no doubt be worn off before we got to the tea house.

With a dress on she walked slower and stood taller. She spoke more quietly and moved with less of a child's gait. She tried to walk like a lady. She was becoming aware of herself.

With this awareness also came a sense of easy embarrassment: the temporary loss of childhood abandon. A group of ladies at a nearby table giggled quietly with good intention at her hat-switching abilities. She immediately threw the hats down and ran to my side, hiding her face behind my back. She was no longer aware of her beauty, but was conscious of herself and felt vulnerable.

My Kindergarten beauty is beginning to become aware of herself, and soon she will become aware of her own body and how it compares to her friends. Maybe her feet will feel too big or her skin will feel too pale. Or maybe she won't like her nose, the one I kiss every night. Maybe she will grow taller than me and be painfully aware of her height and wish she was still shorter than me still.

Maybe when she is tall enough to look me in the eyes, when she has grown to her woman's height, I will have walked the journey long enough to give her some wisdom. I'm glad she still moves between child's fears and adult awareness, and that we both still have so much growing up left to do.

Toddler Beauty

She stood nose to nose in front of my full length mirror; her two-year-old feet stuffed into a pair of my lets-not-be-mommy-for-an-evening shoes. She looked at herself in toddler jeans and my shiny black pumps and said to herself,

I'm beautiful. I'm a pretty princess.

She hasn't been tainted by the world's view of beauty yet. She only knows what her father and I have spoken into her expanding mind: that she is in fact a beautiful princess. She doesn't know what "fat" is, or how acne can scar a soul, or what it feels like to be "too" tall. She hasn't been trained to see herself through culturally defined screens of beauty.

She only sees herself in grown-up shoes with a grin, and eyes so smiling-wide that they are nearly closed.

Naomi clip-clopped her way out of my bathroom across the tile to find her box of dress-up shoes. After multiple tries at different blue, pink or yellow child's heels, she returned to mine with a new, quiet look on her face. She wanted me to fix her hair.

I brushed it and pinned it away from her face with a simple barrette. She looked at herself again in my mirror, and putting my face next to hers I whispered her ear again how beautiful she was, my beautiful baby with a heart that would someday grow into a woman's. And then suddenly I realized how much I wished I could feel the same way about myself; how I could look at myself closeup in a mirror and see myself with untrained eyes. Or maybe with eyes so smiling-wide they are nearly closed.

Quiet the Fear

She is running out the door for her father to drive her to Kindergarten. It is Friday and she is in a good mood. Maybe she'll have a good day.

She turns around and grins at me as she's closing the front door, and she pauses, motioning for me to come closer. She kisses me, and then calls for her sister. She hugs her sister too, still grinning and then asks me to kiss her on the palm of her hand. I do and she holds it to her cheek to transfer. She grabs my hand and kisses me. I hold it to my face and feel her 6-year-0ldold love through my skin.

She's gone.

This extended good-bye begins to scare me. I think that maybe there is some cosmic reason she is taking so long to kiss me and love me and express herself this morning. Maybe, awfully, this is the last time I will see her. Is this a sign? Will the two of them, the love of my life and my first baby, get in the car and not see as another car runs a red light? This just might be it.

I call after them, Be careful!

Over thinking it as I often do, my thoughts race through the next 90 seconds.

How will I raise my other daughter on my own?
Where are the life insurance papers?
What kind of job will I get and who will watch Naomi until she goes to school?
Can I keep the house?
Will I have to go to Hope's Kindergarten class and explain what happened to her classmates?
What will I do without the man I am in love with?
How will I explain to my toddler why her sister is gone?

The interesting thing is, the fear is quite real. It happens. Things like do occur and families are lost and broken and hurt.

But I have to stop myself. I have to quiet my heart. I don't often feel the overwhelming dread like I do right now, but when I do, I have to control it before it goes to far. I could potentially worry myself straight into a mental facility strapped to a bed.

I could hold onto to an irrational fear like this. I could carry it in my heart and never let my children out of my sight. I could keep them in the house, under my careful eye for the rest of their lives. I could call my husband twenty times a day to see if he is alright. I could carry this and let it become the loudest thing about me.

Or I could quiet it. I could let myself sink into the love and the heart of God, who cares about me and my family more than I can understand. I can let Him quiet the fear that sometimes takes me over.

I call my husband anyway, on his way to her school. The 90 seconds of heart-filling fear is gone and I'm not really worrying about insurance papers anymore. I want to hear his voice and know that our daughter is safe in the back seat.

She is, and I can hear her singing along to the music in the background. I think we all will have a good morning.

Mona Lisa Rides a Horse

I ask her, Honey, what is going on in this picture?

Exasperated,

It's Mona Lisa!

(like I should know)

I know. But what is she doing?

Again, a bit put out,

She's at a horse ranch, Mom.

(again, like I should have figured that out).

Okay, now I'm gonna quiz her to see how much her private school education is actually worth.

So who is Mona Lisa, honey?

You know, Mom. She is just....Mona Lisa. I think a robber from France stole her once.

Yeah, I'm sure of that. I tell her that her daddy and I saw the real Mona Lisa before she was born. She isn't impressed. All she cares about is the blonde horse rearing up to Mona Lisa's right. She doesn't really care about France or the most famous painting in the world. She puts the rest of the world into the context of horses and everything she does is done through the filter of loving them.

It is so simple and pure. They invade her thoughts and her dreams at night. They crop up in her questions about life (will there be horses in heaven?) and the things she thinks about as she is going to sleep at the end of the day. She is most herself when she is riding or when she is playing with her stables and horse figures. She is most in her skin .

All I can hope to do is to help my daughter feel comfortable with how she was crafted and the desires and loves that have been placed in her heart. And that the Mona Lisa is nothing in comparison with a Palomino horse.

Google Me

Anyone, anywhere could be reading this.

We've webbed the world into our living rooms and bedrooms over cornfields, glaciers and oceans. Instantly.

That is the wonder of living in 2008 and experiencing the Small World Phenomenon of the Internet. Add Google to the mix and we have instant access to anyone who basically has ever lived (and who has an Internet presence). Any person I didn't like in high school? Google them. Any person I might meet this afternoon? Google them.

Google my name and this blog is the first entry. Anyone who has ever known me basically now has immediate access to every aspect of my life that I share here. (As an aside, you will also find Sarah Markley the social worker and the graphic designer and one who is dead and is listed with her descendants).

And I've been vulnerable. I've shared weight loss stories, true failures in mothering, and basic hurts I've gathered throughout my life. People know all sorts of things about me, but I know very little about them. And I think its alright.

In one terrifying sense it is crazy to think I would share deep and personal things in a PUBLIC journal and PUBLISH it daily for ANYONE to peruse. Sounds like my 10th grade worst nightmare. It is the dream where I am naked in the grocery store or my high school Chemistry class and I realize it just as I enter. Yeah. In a way, that is what blogging is.

But diverting from the public nudity metaphor, there is a certain freedom in exposure. There is no longer anything to hide. It is liberating. The irony is that usually knowledge is power. But in this case, it might be freedom.

Of course I hold a little back. Each one of us has an inner piece that even our spouses or God has trouble breaking into. Each one of us keeps part of us safe and quiet from the world.

But I hope that anyone, anywhere reads me. By daily sharing, consistent writing, I have found it easier and easier to be vulnerably honest. And while I may not be the most inspiring blogger on the web, I might share enough of myself that someone might understand that she isn't alone.

Because we are all in this together.

Homebody

When my toddler became a child and not a wailing infant any longer and she was able to walk and giggle and put words together, she began to play with her sister. Their similarities were obvious - both strong willed, both highly emotional, both full of energy and both continue to move ahead at full force until they fall into bed at night. I thought that I had gotten the four-year-later version of her sister.

I am convinced now that my girls are polar opposites, at least one significant area.

When my six-year-old was a toddler, I had to create reasons to leave the house so that she could get out of doors to release her energy. I would plan our days around a trip to the market and the park or a walk in the local zoo. She thrived on being away and cried when we had to come home. Without much thought, I had made assumptions that my Naomi was the same way.

This morning, after an extended and ear-piercing screaming tantrum in her play and music class, we left and came home. The class had just begun and Naomi wouldn't be calmed or quieted. A normal two-year-old tantrum quickly turned into a kicking and screeching mess in the bathroom. I picked her up still kicking, grabbed our shoes and took her to the car.

I told her we were going home and almost as if she had intended this outcome, she calmed down and began to sing a song. Her sister at the same age would have wailed louder at the thought of going home, whereas Naomi wanted to come home. She wanted to be here with her toys and her dolls and her bare feet. She loves the confines of our home and our yard and everything that is hers. I am only realizing that now.

I understand this is only a minor issue in the whole idea of adjusting parenting styles for each child, but it might actually change a lot. I know that Naomi loves Disneyland and needs the fresh air at the park; she has to go with me if I need to get something from the store, but in general she lives for being at home.

She is a homebody.

I think that part of helping my daughter grow up is about getting to know her and searching her eyes and whines for clues to her heart. It is understanding her motivations and the place she is in her development; guessing at the things that might scare her and make her feel her instability. It is both as simple and complex as recognizing she is a homebody and trying to provide a balance for her and her sister in this home. It is providing boundaries inside which she can run and play without feeling vulnerable to the huge world.

I want to be the mother that both encourages her to take healthy risks that she must in order to grow and change, but to allow her to rest and be herself here. Perhaps understanding her is as simple as understanding my own need for home....I'm a homebody too.

Sticky Space Bars

My space bar isn't working.

Its sticky. I pound it with my right thumb and it doesn't stick down, it just doesn't space.

I mean sometimes it does (I am writing a post right now and there are spaces), but I am constantly having to go back...

Backspace, delete.....THUMP THE SPACE BAR AGAIN!

I simply assume the consistent and proper functioning of my silly, little space bar. I expect it to work correctly, in its four inch-ness, without having to pull a muscle in my right hand to operate it. It is a given in life. Space bars.

I guess I take a lot of things for granted, like space bars and refrigerator lights; dirty diapers, laundry detergent and gasoline in my car. Givens. I assume water from the faucet and heat from the heater and electricity from the wall. I expect to be able to walk to the mailbox, to climb my own stairs and to take my runs on my own two feet. I assume that I will wake up healthy and that my girls will go to bed with full tummies. Also givens.


A given is exactly that: GIVEN. Granted or awarded. I've done nothing to deserve it, nor have I paid anything for it. It is given from Him who grants all things big and small. God gives me my runs at the beach and clean water to drink and sleep at night. He's awarded me a cat with no claws who can catch a lizard, and also the freedom to laugh at it. He gives me little hands to hold, and those same little hands to wash.

Heevengivesmestickyspacebars.

Redefining Friendship

My ideas of friendship are constantly undergoing some kind of redefining. So much so that I can't seem to fix a direct gaze on it. It is such an easy thing, it would seem, and it comes so naturally to some people. I had assumed that I had finally "got it" about friendship, but I still feel confused.

When I was a little girl, a friend was someone I played with at recess. We shared giggles about teachers or mean playground supervisors. I was the one who got ditched in "Ditch 'Em." But the next morning, so eager for acceptance, I would reach out in a juvenile friendship to the girls who had left me in the dark the night before.

As I got a little older I learned that girls who were friends told and kept secrets. To be a friend, you had to know something private and hidden. I was often the third, not understanding the inside jokes and longing to be told the Secrets. I understood later that secrets are something that everyone has and those same girls would have much bigger and scarier ones as they got older. Those they wouldn't share with anyone.

In the horrible 'twixt and 'tween of Junior High School, I found friends and clung to them with both arms, so fearful of being left alone, or worse, left OUT.

In High School we all learned about betrayal and just how much is too much to perpetrate on a friendship and still remain friends. There were boyfriend-stealings, public-humiliations, and the horrible gut feeling of finding out on Monday you hadn't been invited to what had happened on Saturday. But in a school our size, you still had to sit next to her in English. And then you could laugh, and talk about the quiz on Friday while trying to forget hurts.

As an adult, friendship has taken many forms. Some have been unhealthy and selfish. Some I have used to seek my own benefit or just simply to make me feel good, perhaps attempting to make up for the lost secrets of my girlhood. Grown-up girls still play Ditch 'Em in grown-up ways and adult sized betrayals often have farther reaching consequences than those when you are 15. I have both done the betraying and been the wounded in different friendships.

Others have been healthy. There have been groups that have enveloped me and loved me, scars and all, for who I am. The girls I lived with in college, the women I met at my recent conference...these clusters have given me a different sort of confidence in my ability to make friends - that being myself is really all I need to do and good people will accumulate themselves near me.

Some friendships have burst into brilliant color and closeness and faded just as quickly. Some have been forged over mothering, over long early morning runs, or over frozen yogurt and have kept a steady pace.

So really, as I am thirty-three and married and mother of two and have had hundreds of different friends over my lifetime, I still am not sure what friendship looks like.

Is it talking to someone every day about crock-pot dinners and toilet-training? Yes.
Is it waiting 7 months to call someone to talk but when we do it is as if no time has passed? Yes.
Is it being sorry about words said and wishing things could be taken back? Yes.
Is it still feeling left out because I wasn't invited? Yes.
Is friendship being able to sit with someone and watch TV and laugh without having to have a formal conversation? Yes.

Yes, yes. Friendship is constantly being redefined, daily, hourly. Every new or old friend is her own flavor of friendship and I am learning that the only real living moves and breathes within relationships, regardless of what those relationships look like.

Finding Me

Mama, I found you!

My toddler yells and screams and runs headlong toward me at the beach, slapping the wet sand with her feet. She is sunscreen-greasy in her hot pink polka dots and she wraps her arms, cold from the spring ocean, around my legs.

Ah, Mama....I found you....

Its a sigh now, not a bellow. I had taken her older sister down the beach to the tide pools for all of twenty minutes. Her father had chased her around the ankle deep water while we had been gone, digging holes with her and protecting her from the occasional toddler-waist deep wave.

We are back now from our short exploration, and Naomi almost tackles me in the surf, apparently waiting for me this whole time.

Hug, hug, Mama.

I scoop her up, the wet sand from her body now all over me. She found me. And she giggles as I kiss her gritty cheek.

Funny, I didn't know I had been misplaced.

To her - in her short-term memory baby mind - I had been lost. Twenty minutes probably seemed like a week to her, even though she was doing her own exploration with shovels and sand toys and shallow sea-pools dug in the sand.

I hadn't been lost, but she found me anyway. And to be honest, it felt so good to be found.

In a wide sense, these girls HAVE found me. I have a different purpose, a narrower focus and more tangible goals than before I began mothering. They've changed me in vast ways, in good ways. They've hugged away bitterness with cold-beach-arms and melted away hurt with sandy, smiling faces.

They have helped me find me.

Dear Cat

Dear Cat,

Please do not think you are the Queen of this home. I am. Before Hope grew into her full six-year-old self, you were just "Cat". Now, you are "Rosie", but no one calls you that but her. You are still "Cat" to me.

You live in my home. You eat my food. I clean your water dish and your litter box. I even have taken you to Kindergarten to meet the class.

And as it is with children, there are reasons why I make rules in this home. I don't allow the girls to play with markers in the living room. The reasons are obvious. I require them to brush their teeth. These reasons are less obvious, but the rules must be adhered to nonetheless. They will thank me when their teeth don't fall out in adulthood.

And you, dearest Cat, have rules as well. You may NOT walk on the kitchen counter. You may NOT drink out of my water glass, and above all you may NOT go outside.

You may think me harsh or brutal. You may wish you had the life of a ranch cat, chasing rabbits, biting the dogs' tails all day long, and sauntering in toward the evening for your dinner. But I assure you, you live the life of luxury. You are a housecat. Your kingdom is the extent of our home, even though you are a serf.

There are reasons unknown to you why you may NOT go outside. You have no claws. You don't. I know you paw at the furniture trying to scratch something, but there is only silent frustration. You cannot defend yourself against a coyote or a mountain lion that might think you are a nice, fat appetizer. Please trust me in this.

The second reason, that I most recently discovered, why you may NOT go outside is that you are also not allowed to bring a dead lizard into the house!! If you hadn't sneaked into the yard this afternoon during the baby's nap, you would not have killed, decapitated and spread around the upstairs what used to be (I think) a 5 -6 inch lizard.

I know it was fun catching it, probably more fun than you have had in years. I also know that the dead lizard was something of a love-offering to us or a trophy of some sort. I get it. You can catch a lizard using only your clawless feet and your teeth. Way to go.

But, Cat, never, under any circumstances, EVER BRING A DEAD LIZARD INTO THE HOUSE AGAIN! You will find yourself outside with the coyotes if that ever happens again. Trust me, they have claws.

Loving you dearly,

The Queen

Freedom

I want to hold my daughter by the shoulders, kneel down to her eye level, and tell her that she needs to be a little girl for as long as she is able.

I want her to understand that waiting to grow up is like waiting for a car on an empty highway: before she even fully grasps that it is coming it is already gone. She can't even get a good look at it until it has passed and she turns her head to follow it. If she would have blinked, she would have missed it.

She has her days laid out in front of her, with no homework, with nothing she must do beside being a daughter in my house. She has the whole of the afternoon to play, to make-believe. She can explore and hide and fall asleep if she wants to. She can read a book unencumbered by herself in a window seat she has made for herself. She can draw, she can color and use glue filled with glitter.

She has a freedom now that she will never have again. She has a freedom that adults search for their whole lives to reclaim.

I want to tell her that growing up is not all that it seems; that there are phone calls to make, resumes to write, mortgages to pay. That there isn't enough time in the day to play. I want her to see that with knowledge comes burdens that are sometimes too big to bear. I want her to understand this freedom that belongs only to her, and only right now.

But she won't understand. She won't realize this perfect freedom until it has gone and until she blinks and she is an adult.

Cartwheels

Today I need to slow down. I need to take the time to be with my children and not work next to them as they play. I need to take the time to watch a few cartwheels turned on the grass outside.

I am sitting watching my toddler as she runs circles around a fountain at an outdoor eating area in a nearby mall. She says,

Dance, Mama.

I tell her to dance and I make small movements as I am sitting. She won't accept it and she pulls on my arm. Dance, Mama!!

Well, there are people and other mothers and business guys eating lunch, and there is no music. Embarrassed I stand anyway and start to dance with her. Fortunately for me, its enough to satisfy her and she's off again, dancing with herself around the fountain.

I need to take the time today to dance WITH my girls today, and not wash my dishes or fold my laundry-mountain as they argue and play together. I need to be outside with them when they are outside, and jump the 100-space hopscotch my six-year-old has drawn.

My mother's heart needs to play today.

Constant

We don't own a cabin in the mountains. We don't have a timeshare on the Big Island. We don't even drive an RV.

When my sister and I were growing up, the consistent setting for our family vacations was Yosemite National Park. We'd pack our tent, our sleeping bags and our bicycles in the back of my dad's truck and drive 6 hours north to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Two hours to Bakersfield, two more to Fresno, then another two to the Park.

Most summers we would find ourselves wading in the icy Merced River whose water flowed direct from the glacier snow melt, or riding our bikes through the campgrounds, or hiking up to the top of Vernal Falls.

Yosemite was the backdrop against which so many family memories were set. It was a a fixed point in my childhood that spanned years and all the memories from annual trips blend together. It was a constant.

For the past five years our family has travelled with our church 90 minutes away to our local mountains for a family camp. Three days of swimming, volleyball, playing in the sand, hiking, ping-pong, campfires, talent shows and staying up way too late has taken us every August to what Hope has named church-in-the-mountains. She talks about it beginning in September and asks when we are going back. She has gone every year since she was born.

Until this year.

For reasons unknown to me, our church was unable to secure our normal retreat spot and has decided we cannot do it this summer. I don't know if we will ever be able to go back and last August might have been our last time. I don't have the heart to tell her that there is no church-in-the-mountains this year, or maybe ever.

I had begun to think that this was going to be the consistent background for my kids' memories. I had thought that this was their "Yosemite." They were going to fashion their blended memories around this setting - this place that as a child seems as big as the whole world itself, ready to be explored new each summer.

We don't go to the same house or have the same RV like some families.

It struck me this morning as I was quietly grieving the loss of a future experience not yet had (for me, but mostly for my daughters), that it us up to me to create this setting that travels with us. The constant background does not need to be one particular physical place. The constant is us. WE as a family are the constant.

Wherever we go is where the memories will form and then be exaggerated or forgotten. We might travel to a beach one year, or go camping the next. We might even go to Hawaii or England. Or we will stay home.

But we are the setting, we are the backdrop to set our memories against.

Twelve Zeros

Twelve zeros.

Hope asked me yesterday what a trillion was. Stumped me. I told her to wait until we stopped and I would write it out for her. Twelve zeros.

As an adult, when I hear trillion I think national debt. We stopped and I wrote the numbers beginning with

1,000
10,000
100,000...

Until we got to a trillion. We counted the zeros. Twelve in a row seperated by commas. She was amazed, but even down on paper it is still an abstract concept, something even difficult for an adult to picture.

We guessed together what might be a trillion. The sand in the ocean. The leaves on all the trees in the world. Cloud-stuff, pieces of clouds (God's cotton balls, per Hope). All the bugs. Not all the people, not quite.

Then it came to me: God's love for you, sweetheart. And my love for you. That is how much a mama loves her daughter. Did you know that? A TRILLION worth.

She smiled and said,

No, that's infinity, Mom.

Yeah, that too.

Minor Regrets

I've never once regretted a run. Not once.

I've regretted many things in life. Minor things like yelling at my daughter, snapping at my husband, eating three cookies in 30 seconds. Big things too.

But not once have I ever regretted lacing up my running shoes and going out of doors. I don't claim that every time I've ran it's been easy to get there, or that I haven't stayed in bed when I really should pushing my grogginess up a hill. But once I've begun it, I've never wanted to go home unfinished.

I've paid costs for running like rarely sleeping in until 6 on a Wednesday and few mornings spent lounging in a Saturday-bed with the sun high and cartoons on for the kids. I've given up naps and cups of coffee with a book; I've paid the cost in blisters, stress fractures and aching hips.

But, there is always fresh morning air to be gained...
And jogging through shoulder-high yellow wildflowers tall from the winter rain and spring warmth...
and the solitude,
and the thinking time,
and the sometimes deer or coyote,
and the quickly beating heart in time with my feet, the hill climbed once again and the rocky trail familiar to my running shoes.
And there are sunrises and suns hiding behind clouds and hills and moons setting,
and there are always, always new words that write themselves in my head.

But when the motivation ebbs and the lethargy begins to swell, and I am tempted to turn over on my pillow once again in the early morning, tap my husband and tell him I'm just too tired to go out, I have to somehow remember that the only thing I will regret is closing my eyes and going back to sleep.

I've never regretted a run. Not once.

Surprise Party

A classic plot in literature and film is when the hero finally learns of the day and hour of his death. He knows when the end is and he either squanders and wastes his time trying to stop the inevitable, or he gives in to it and says his goodbyes and lives life to the fullest.

It is a real question. How long do I have? What do I do with my time if it is only one more hour, or if it is one more lifetime...

I look at my girls in the living room, carefree and breezy in spring dresses and they are laughing. They don't worry about the end.

And being honest...I don't worry much about the unresolved questions. Not right now. Not when I am folding laundry or sweeping my kitchen floor. Not until I watch my girls giggling and then I wonder about the choices they will have to make and the choices that will be made for them as they begin this life.

There is a certain hope and an excitement in not knowing how it will all turn out. Like a surprise party when the guest of honor has a small intuition that there is a surprise, but she doesn't know when or where or who. The surprise is coming and there are forces beyond her control working for her good. They will jump out and cheer for her and she will still be embarrassed and her heart will still beat quickly. But it is all for her.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke said "Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart, and learn to love the questions themselves."

I need to live the best way I know how even though I cannot solve the end. And I don't want to solve the end. I must be patient. I want to hold dear the questions and the unknowable. I want to live knowing there is a surprise party for me.

The Tooth Fairy is a Fool

We haven't taught our kids to BELIEVE in Santa Claus. But between our commercialism-heavy culture and some make-believe of their own, our kids have chosen to believe in him (although it is some crazy mix of yes, he might be real, but no he doesn't slide down the chimney).


Regardless of my six-year-old's belief or disbelief in other imaginary holiday characters, she does believe in the tooth fairy and has counted on her now for seven teeth worth of money under the pillow. Her belief was nearly shattered earlier this week as Mama-Tooth-Fairy forgot about her daughter's carefully placed treasure.


I do have an excuse. Actually a whole bunch of them. Her father worked late on Monday night, so there was no one else there to witness the event as she pulled her own tooth out right before bed. Which brings me to my next point of defense: I had no time to think about how and when to plot the money exchange because it happened so quickly. It really wasn't that wiggly - Hope just yanked it out with a big grin. Also, I went to bed right after she did, so I promptly forgot about the tooth as I drifted off to sleep.


The first day of April dawned (not a holiday in my mind, but stragically placed on the day Mama-Tooth-Fairy forgets the money), and my daughter walks into our room in the early morning. Accompanied by a groggy whine,


Mama, the tooth fairy forgot to bring me money!


Adrenaline charged I jumped out of bed without needing to feign surprise. Really? Are you sure? Did you check everywhere?


Yes, No, I didn't check everywhere. And...I can't even find my tooth!


Good, maybe that will work to my advantage...my mind already racing when just minutes ago I was asleep. Go look again, honey...I'll help you in a minute! I grabbed some quarters from my husband's stash on his dresser and placed them in my left hand.


My daughter has a perpetually disheveled room (unless I get in there and clean it daily) as she is continually making "homes" and hovels for her various animals and horses. They MUST stay up overnight or her "pets" won't have a place to sleep for the night. So when I walked in, different pillows and small quilts covered the ground in careful fences and stalls for her imaginary farm.


By now, she was distraught, beginning to tear apart her own houses to look for both the money and/or the tooth.


Do you think she forgot?


No, honey, I'm sure she didn't forget. I made my way to her bed and asked her if she had looked under BOTH of her pillows. No?


Wait, Mama...what is that clinking???


She had heard but not seen my covert placement of the quarters under the OTHER pillow, the one that the tooth had not been placed under the night before. She leaped onto the bed and threw off the pillow. And with an understanding grin, she suddenly realized what day it was....


April Fools Day.


Crisis averted, and in a way I could have never planned. We now would like to believe that the tooth fairy likes to play kindhearted practical jokes, especially when children lose their teeth on March 31st.

Losing - Last

When I found out I was pregnant with my second daughter, I was already 15 pounds heavier than I was comfortable with.

This was nothing like my first pregnancy. Four years earlier I had gently gained the proper amount of weight at the right weeks consuming the correct amount of milk and protein daily to meet the needs of my growing baby, blah blah blah. I had tried to be perfect. I had exercised up to 32 weeks and had fruit or yogurt for snacks during the day.

During my second pregnancy, it was if the diet floodgates were opened and I decided I would eat anything I chose. Fish tacos, french fries, chocolate cake, peanut butter and bananas --- I felt like I could indulge myself with anything. Hamburgers, too! I don't even eat hamburgers.

I gained an additional 65 pounds. I had put on each lost pound plus more. I looked at the scale the week before I went into the hospital and not only did I weigh more than my 6'3" husband, but it was the highest I had ever seen it.

My depression this time was slight and short lived. I was determined to lose this weight the right way, in moderation, without giving into my control issues and allowing God to help me in this process. I also knew I didn't have the luxury to waste any time. I had to begin the day I got home from the hospital or I would never begin. I needed to make a clean break.


Our daughter was born and we named her for the grace and beauty that God had shown us over the previous years. She was healthy, and big (9lbs 11oz) and slept like she had been born for it.

The tried methods are always the true ones, so after Naomi was born I went back to Weight Watchers. Again, I limited my portions and counted fat and fiber into my diet. Weight Watchers and daily exercise (this time only what I could squeeze in between nursing and napping and preschool drop offs) helped me to lose all of the weight I had put on by the time she was 9 months old.


I will never again be "scary-skinny" as my husband had dubbed my first adventure in weight loss. And hopefully, I will never again allow myself to become obese again. I feel the most like "me" where I am right now. I try to treat both food and exercise with an even hand, indulging in my favorite foods once in awhile and taking a break from working out when my body begs for it.


The funny thing is, Hollywood would call me fat. I am 5'8", I am 147 pounds and I wear a size 8. I have worn everything from a 2 to a 16 in the past 8 years. I can run a 9 minute mile in a half-marathon and I can survive an hour long spin class. I feel fit.


To be honest, I do look in the mirror and feel "fat" sometimes. I know that I am not, that I am average. And each time I am tempted to believe it, I have to tear down the lies that the world has built up inside me: that thinness and beauty equal worth. Not only did I use to believe this lie, but I staked my whole life on it.


My biggest battle now is not the food aspect (although I have really bad days sometimes) or the exercise motivation (it is hard to get up and get myself moving at 5 am), but it is that I am faced with two little girls who might grow up believing the thinness/worth lie unless it is replaced with something else. Something true.


Maybe they will see my life, how it has changed, and that their mother struggles every day to find her worth in God and not in anything else.

Visit Brad' Huebert's blog for a man's point of view on beauty and the eye of the beholder.

Losing - Three

After I had my daughter, I quickly lost any weight I had gained.

I filled the next two years with two-a-days at the gym, training for sprint triathlons and a marathon. I weighed myself